Reflections on Instructional Design for E-Learning
Week 1 – Design with Learning in Mind
I always find the first week to be challenging – getting a routine and figuring out how to manage my time. It has been a long time since I took an online course. I took a bit of a hiatus during my last job as it was a very busy time for me. I missed out on a lot of learning, though, but managed to learn in other ways. I am looking forward to what this course has to offer as I find instructional design so interesting and something not all educators understand. It will be good for me to clarify my thinking around this.
Week 2 – Mapping the Future
I found the readings this week very interesting and especially enjoyed the new taxonomy and the categories that were added and changed. It makes sense in today’s world and it was good to see the change. I struggled deciding on modules and objectives, though, and it took me a while to decide what to focus on as there are so many options. I considered doing a math or social studies unit as this is what I would teach if I went back into the classroom and thought this would be good practice for me, but decided to do something that I could use right away. I added visual thinking in there to change things up a bit and that is what I like to focus on when I work with teachers on using technology in their classrooms. This was a big week for learning to write objectives and I particularly enjoyed learning about the ABCD method for writing objectives - start with your Audience, think about what you want them to accomplish (Behavior), add any Conditions they might meet when accomplishing the task, and then add the Degree to which they will be able to perform the objective. There is a good description of this process in the Penn State Learning Hub. I received some positive and constructive feedback in this module. Susan pointed out that I had a good variety of verbs in my objectives, but a few of them were a bit fuzzy and might be difficult to assess. At this point, I was able to go back to my objectives and make a few changes to make them more clear and more easy to assess.
Week 3 – Designing for Assessment
This was one of my favorite units and I felt very engaged this week. I think assessment is so important – both formative and summative to the student’s learning process and I am very passionate about it, especially consistent feedback. This is where I think many educators miss the point of their teaching. The feedback part is often missing and the students don’t know how they are doing until it is too late. Listing a variety of assessments for my class was a challenging experience. Aligning my assessments to the objectives made it a much easier process. I also learned that while designing, I need to keep in mind the student as a learner and make the learning more student-centered and less teacher-centered. The learning and activities should be created so the student is constructing their own knowledge as they learn. In this module, when I filled out the Learning Process form, the feedback I received made me realize that my information had not been broken down enough. I was able to use this feedback when I got to the chunking activity and I broke the activities into even smaller chunks that will then help as I provide feedback for this activity.
Week 4 - Active and Engaged Learning
I was on ski week in Austria so it was a bit of a relief not to have to participate in the discussion. I found that I missed that connection, though. I enjoyed the readings, especially the reading on the age difference and also the additional reading Susan posted about how students like to learn. I keep trying to promote technology and a lot of what I am reading supports this and I can pass it on to my teachers. I liked the breakdown of activities into absorb, do and connect. It made the process very simple and clear and made it easier to add a variety of learning activities. I did struggle a bit while trying to come up with activities as I felt they were similar to my assessments. I got off track trying to make them different, but the feedback from Susan made it more clear that it is ok if they are similar. My project is a little different so I found some of the activities a bit challenging.
Week 5 - Aligning Instructional Strategies
This is the week I felt like the course really started to click with me. I started with the graphic syllabus for this module because I needed to get a picture in my head about how all of the pieces were going to fit together before creating my learning guides. I really enjoyed the process of breaking down the pieces of each module even further and it helped me to gather my ideas for the learning guides. I am proud of my syllabus, not only in the way it looks, but also with the content. This process of creating my syllabus helped me to align all of the pieces in my mind. Tying the objectives, assessments, and learning activities together helped me to create a more cohesive course. After the syllabus was created, I was able to begin my work on the learning guides. Gathering the resources was the biggest challenge for me and once I get this course finalized a big part for me will be creating demonstration videos so that the course will have a personal touch and I will actually be able to teach the teachers even though I won't be with them. Another challenging part of the learning activities was the discussion questions. I tried to make them meaningful, but varied so that everyone would find a question that appealed to them. The self assessment section helped me to clarify what I really wanted the learners to know at the end of the module.
Week 6 - Designing Content
This was the busiest week for me as it took me a while to process and connect what we read to what was required on form 10. I am thankful for the student examples and the teacher example as these always help me to understand the assignments in a more concrete way. During this week, I realized that one of the modules I created was not specific (or chunked) enough so went back and broke it down into smaller pieces. I thought about creating separate modules for each of the tools I wanted the teachers to learn, but really want the teachers to see each of these tools as connected so decided not to break up the module into separate modules. I feel like my transitions are a bit repetitive and need some fine-tuning, but am happy overall with my work. In Module 6, I think I received the most beneficial feedback as I was very confused about adding the absorb, do and connect activities to connect to the assessment ideas. I was trying to make them very different and Susan pointed out that they could be a bit repetitive. This cleared up the process in my mind and I was able to go back and edit this document right away, combining some columns and revising some of the activities.
Week 7 - Designing for Best Practice
This week was one final flurry of learning and was much more intense than I thought it would be. I chose to go through the UBL Tutorial because I wanted to experience a self-paced, badge-based tutorial since this is what I am hoping to create. This tutorial was packed with excellent information and was well-laid out. Each section required quite a bit of reading and learning, but the activities were broken down into small enough chunks so that one activity could be done in a sitting. The resource that was used, called CAST was full of information as well as an immense array of tools for each of the sections. I will refer back to this resource often and it felt good to walk away with a badge to show the learning. I liked the way the site was broken up into recognition, strategic, and affective networks and there were descriptions and examples in each area. I was feeling like I had missed something by not going through the first activity, but activity 11 gave me an opportunity to look more closely at the evaluation tools that were used in activity 1a so I got to learn from both. I liked the evaluation tools I looked at, especially QOCI as it was easy for me to follow. What I came away with from using CAST and the evaluation tools is a few ideas about universal design and best practices. With universal design and from the CAST site, I learned that it is important to use provide a variety of activities and experiences for the learners in all areas of the learning process. From representation of materials (absorb activities), to action and expression (do activities) and finally with engagement (connect activities), it is important to give the learners the opportunity to learn and create in many ways. As I looked through the evaluation tools, I came away with some good ideas about best practicein designing my learning sites. When thinking about the evaluation tools in Activity 11, I focused on providing a variety of resources for the learners, using technology for communication, incorporating self-assessment and peer feedback, chunking learner content, and making sure the formats for media worked well.
For the final portion of this, we were asked to work with a partner taking a look at each other's final project and commenting on the different parts. I was assigned to a partner who had been in the other discussion group so I was a bit worried about not having made a connection with her, but after this experience, I feel she was well-chosen for me. After reading through her project, I feel like we have some similar experiences and frustrations in our roles and our projects have a similar feel so I learned as much looking over her work as I did from reading her feedback and I look forward to seeing how it all works out for her. This was a good experience for me so I thank Susan for putting us together and Michelle for her thoughts and reflections on my project.
Week 8 - Final Touches and Reflection on Feedback
I am adding the finishing touches to my final project and looking over the rubric as I make sure the project is complete. I am proud of the areas that I have worked on and feel like it is all coming together so well and I am off to a good start for my course. The most useful part of this course was the feedback I received from my instructor throughout the process as well as from my classmates through discussion and finally from my partner as we provided feedback to each other on the courses. I received quite a bit of positive feedback and also some constructive feedback and I learned so much from the constructive feedback and was able to change my course as I received the feedback from each module. What I appreciated most was the quick feedback I received as it allowed me to immediately go back and make the changes necessary.
I always find the first week to be challenging – getting a routine and figuring out how to manage my time. It has been a long time since I took an online course. I took a bit of a hiatus during my last job as it was a very busy time for me. I missed out on a lot of learning, though, but managed to learn in other ways. I am looking forward to what this course has to offer as I find instructional design so interesting and something not all educators understand. It will be good for me to clarify my thinking around this.
Week 2 – Mapping the Future
I found the readings this week very interesting and especially enjoyed the new taxonomy and the categories that were added and changed. It makes sense in today’s world and it was good to see the change. I struggled deciding on modules and objectives, though, and it took me a while to decide what to focus on as there are so many options. I considered doing a math or social studies unit as this is what I would teach if I went back into the classroom and thought this would be good practice for me, but decided to do something that I could use right away. I added visual thinking in there to change things up a bit and that is what I like to focus on when I work with teachers on using technology in their classrooms. This was a big week for learning to write objectives and I particularly enjoyed learning about the ABCD method for writing objectives - start with your Audience, think about what you want them to accomplish (Behavior), add any Conditions they might meet when accomplishing the task, and then add the Degree to which they will be able to perform the objective. There is a good description of this process in the Penn State Learning Hub. I received some positive and constructive feedback in this module. Susan pointed out that I had a good variety of verbs in my objectives, but a few of them were a bit fuzzy and might be difficult to assess. At this point, I was able to go back to my objectives and make a few changes to make them more clear and more easy to assess.
Week 3 – Designing for Assessment
This was one of my favorite units and I felt very engaged this week. I think assessment is so important – both formative and summative to the student’s learning process and I am very passionate about it, especially consistent feedback. This is where I think many educators miss the point of their teaching. The feedback part is often missing and the students don’t know how they are doing until it is too late. Listing a variety of assessments for my class was a challenging experience. Aligning my assessments to the objectives made it a much easier process. I also learned that while designing, I need to keep in mind the student as a learner and make the learning more student-centered and less teacher-centered. The learning and activities should be created so the student is constructing their own knowledge as they learn. In this module, when I filled out the Learning Process form, the feedback I received made me realize that my information had not been broken down enough. I was able to use this feedback when I got to the chunking activity and I broke the activities into even smaller chunks that will then help as I provide feedback for this activity.
Week 4 - Active and Engaged Learning
I was on ski week in Austria so it was a bit of a relief not to have to participate in the discussion. I found that I missed that connection, though. I enjoyed the readings, especially the reading on the age difference and also the additional reading Susan posted about how students like to learn. I keep trying to promote technology and a lot of what I am reading supports this and I can pass it on to my teachers. I liked the breakdown of activities into absorb, do and connect. It made the process very simple and clear and made it easier to add a variety of learning activities. I did struggle a bit while trying to come up with activities as I felt they were similar to my assessments. I got off track trying to make them different, but the feedback from Susan made it more clear that it is ok if they are similar. My project is a little different so I found some of the activities a bit challenging.
Week 5 - Aligning Instructional Strategies
This is the week I felt like the course really started to click with me. I started with the graphic syllabus for this module because I needed to get a picture in my head about how all of the pieces were going to fit together before creating my learning guides. I really enjoyed the process of breaking down the pieces of each module even further and it helped me to gather my ideas for the learning guides. I am proud of my syllabus, not only in the way it looks, but also with the content. This process of creating my syllabus helped me to align all of the pieces in my mind. Tying the objectives, assessments, and learning activities together helped me to create a more cohesive course. After the syllabus was created, I was able to begin my work on the learning guides. Gathering the resources was the biggest challenge for me and once I get this course finalized a big part for me will be creating demonstration videos so that the course will have a personal touch and I will actually be able to teach the teachers even though I won't be with them. Another challenging part of the learning activities was the discussion questions. I tried to make them meaningful, but varied so that everyone would find a question that appealed to them. The self assessment section helped me to clarify what I really wanted the learners to know at the end of the module.
Week 6 - Designing Content
This was the busiest week for me as it took me a while to process and connect what we read to what was required on form 10. I am thankful for the student examples and the teacher example as these always help me to understand the assignments in a more concrete way. During this week, I realized that one of the modules I created was not specific (or chunked) enough so went back and broke it down into smaller pieces. I thought about creating separate modules for each of the tools I wanted the teachers to learn, but really want the teachers to see each of these tools as connected so decided not to break up the module into separate modules. I feel like my transitions are a bit repetitive and need some fine-tuning, but am happy overall with my work. In Module 6, I think I received the most beneficial feedback as I was very confused about adding the absorb, do and connect activities to connect to the assessment ideas. I was trying to make them very different and Susan pointed out that they could be a bit repetitive. This cleared up the process in my mind and I was able to go back and edit this document right away, combining some columns and revising some of the activities.
Week 7 - Designing for Best Practice
This week was one final flurry of learning and was much more intense than I thought it would be. I chose to go through the UBL Tutorial because I wanted to experience a self-paced, badge-based tutorial since this is what I am hoping to create. This tutorial was packed with excellent information and was well-laid out. Each section required quite a bit of reading and learning, but the activities were broken down into small enough chunks so that one activity could be done in a sitting. The resource that was used, called CAST was full of information as well as an immense array of tools for each of the sections. I will refer back to this resource often and it felt good to walk away with a badge to show the learning. I liked the way the site was broken up into recognition, strategic, and affective networks and there were descriptions and examples in each area. I was feeling like I had missed something by not going through the first activity, but activity 11 gave me an opportunity to look more closely at the evaluation tools that were used in activity 1a so I got to learn from both. I liked the evaluation tools I looked at, especially QOCI as it was easy for me to follow. What I came away with from using CAST and the evaluation tools is a few ideas about universal design and best practices. With universal design and from the CAST site, I learned that it is important to use provide a variety of activities and experiences for the learners in all areas of the learning process. From representation of materials (absorb activities), to action and expression (do activities) and finally with engagement (connect activities), it is important to give the learners the opportunity to learn and create in many ways. As I looked through the evaluation tools, I came away with some good ideas about best practicein designing my learning sites. When thinking about the evaluation tools in Activity 11, I focused on providing a variety of resources for the learners, using technology for communication, incorporating self-assessment and peer feedback, chunking learner content, and making sure the formats for media worked well.
For the final portion of this, we were asked to work with a partner taking a look at each other's final project and commenting on the different parts. I was assigned to a partner who had been in the other discussion group so I was a bit worried about not having made a connection with her, but after this experience, I feel she was well-chosen for me. After reading through her project, I feel like we have some similar experiences and frustrations in our roles and our projects have a similar feel so I learned as much looking over her work as I did from reading her feedback and I look forward to seeing how it all works out for her. This was a good experience for me so I thank Susan for putting us together and Michelle for her thoughts and reflections on my project.
Week 8 - Final Touches and Reflection on Feedback
I am adding the finishing touches to my final project and looking over the rubric as I make sure the project is complete. I am proud of the areas that I have worked on and feel like it is all coming together so well and I am off to a good start for my course. The most useful part of this course was the feedback I received from my instructor throughout the process as well as from my classmates through discussion and finally from my partner as we provided feedback to each other on the courses. I received quite a bit of positive feedback and also some constructive feedback and I learned so much from the constructive feedback and was able to change my course as I received the feedback from each module. What I appreciated most was the quick feedback I received as it allowed me to immediately go back and make the changes necessary.
Photo Source: flickr